


do you want me, or do you want me dead?

by orphan_account



Category: Diabolik Lovers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Healing, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 08:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5410769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It'll take Kou Mukami six broken bones, three kisses and five years to realise that he's in love with Subaru Sakamaki, and it'll take Subaru even more.</p><p>Human AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	do you want me, or do you want me dead?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm an awful person because I'm delaying my other ongoing fic to work on this one-

_**Does he ever stop fucking smiling?** _

_Subaru is so much more furious than he should be, every disgusting, flowery word that escapes those lips (are they glossed?) manages to successfully provoke him into a spiral of further frustration. The way he tips his head to the side as if he's caught in mid-thought, how he allows those deliberately tiny pauses to infiltrate his speech to act like his perfectly planned irritances are somehow natural, that he won't stop teasing him no matter how many times Subaru tells him to--_

_"Fuck off."_

_The phrase is filled with poison and barely masked disgust, and he has to keep his hands shoved in his pockets because otherwise, otherwise he won't be able to resist his one and only urge. Is it really what Kou wants him to do? In fact, one of the few things preventing Subaru from smashing that smug, obnoxious face in is the fear that the only reaction he'll provoke is a laugh and an even wider smirk._

_"Hey, don't tell me I upset you?"_

_And this is the point where a slender hand trickles its way through the overly yellow layers of hair concealing the right side of his oh-so-punchable face, dislodging it enough so that it bounces when he removes it and places it on his hip, swung way too far to the side. It's like he's posing or some ridiculous shit, showing off those so called good looks, something that it seems absolutely everybody is enamoured with with the exception of Subaru himself._

_"Idiot.. What are you playing at?"_

_It's the third time they've met on the school rooftop now, and the setting is the same as ever. The black iron fence arches up and obscures the sky in a lattice pattern, though the orange sunset manages to creep through and throw itself through the gaps in the bars to darken the pair's shadows and to cast a soft edge of light on the contours of their faces. It's almost scenic, but it isn't as if Subaru has the patience nor the type of mindset to appreciate the aesthetics of the repeated situation._

_"I just like your reactions, that's all."_

_The one eye that's visible to him is glittering with something strange and utterly confusing, if there's one thing Subaru could say for Kou it is that he is unreadable. Their gazes cross with a temporary intensity, and when Subaru narrows his eyes to attempt reading beyond the set lines, Kou does the unexpected and averts his own, like the shifty bastard is hiding something else. Still the distance is maintained without anything further, spinning on his heel to show the blond nothing more than his back as he storms down the stairs before he ends up impaling him on the top of those rails._

_It's pointless, after all._

_He's not going to feed that guy's sick enjoyment._

_Yet still, of course he'll come back the next time Kou prompts him to, of course he will._

 

It would take Subaru Sakamaki five years and a literal fucking car crash to realise why he followed Kou Mukami up there every goddamn time, but by the end of it all he'd be pretty grateful it all happened.

 

* * *

 

 Sunday mornings possibly qualified as the worst time of the entire week for Subaru. The birds hanging on the cable outside his window wouldn't shut up, and there was absolutely nothing to do, but at least he'd finally achieved the solitude he'd always dreamed of.

It was just a one bedroom apartment on the edge of town, further into the city than the old mansion had ever been yet in a perfectly quiet location. He'd really lucked in, for some bizarre reason he was popular with the boss at his job who just happened to have a friend who owned a couple of flats and trusted him, what had been a 18 year old with no parents or connections that he'd speak about, freshly escaped from an aristocratic residence without a bit of money to his name, to live in one of them. Still, with the wages he was paid from his job, he managed to get by on a simple lifestyle paying the rent every month. It had been this way for 3 years now, and as far as he was concerned, he didn't fancy anything changing too much.

After shoving himself into an unsatisfying shower with that annoying ass 'Lily Explosion' shower gel Laito had sent him for his 21st birthday a couple of weeks back, Subaru sits himself down on the couch to chew peacefully on a bowl of cheap cereal with barely any milk, just the way he likes it. He knows fully well he stinks of floral odours, but it was less hassle to use the gift than to bother heading to the centre of town for a new one, right? Coming from his inexplicable brother, who knew if he had been sent it as a joke or as something that Laito genuinely thought he would enjoy the smell of.

Despite keeping them all in his phone's contacts, he had very little contact with his brothers these days, though some old, unfounded sentimality forced him to send them all messages on their birthdays and Christmases; how stupid. After graduating high school, he knew the triplets had moved on to pursue future careers, moving out in a similar way he had done, though he had no idea about Shu and Reiji. Shu, he presumed, would have stayed in the mansion even if he was the last one left. Reiji? Probably the type to head to some prestigious university and become a doctor or some shit. More than Subaru could ever achieve anyway.

"Shit... Out of coffee."

Subaru growls in frustration, banging the cardboard pot he used to store those granules that might as well be his fucking life force on its head in some fruitless attempt to knock out any remainders. How else was he supposed to survive at 8 fucking am if he didn't have that usual cup of black coffee to get him through? There was no choice but to brace the November chills and take a trip to the shops just for the sake of that fucking, beloved coffee. Any brand would do, it wasn't as if he was picky.

Quickly tugging on some of his oldest, worn jeans with a grey tee, Subaru grabs his wallet and briefly checks he has enough change before swiping his keys from the side- still adorned with that hideous lavender teddy bear keyring that Kanato had presumed would be an appropriate birthday gift for him. It was nothing more than a logical assumption to think that his brothers had no concept of what a decent fucking present would be. In all honesty, socks would have been just great.

The air is just as cold as he had pictured it to be, his hands involuntarily sliding inside the barely insulating pockets of his jeans, and his index fingers can slip through and expand the tiny frayed holes within if he pushes them hard enough, but he resists because ruining these jeans would probably mess up his entire life, no exaggeration. They're the only ones he owns, after all.

Tall columns of stone buildings surround him on both sides of the street, a few hung left to right with Christmas lights that are either a little too early or absurdly, unjustifiably late. Not that they really add too much of a festive mood either way, the morning sun obliterates their watery multicoloured attempts at shining, leaving them as just black webs stretching over the sides of houses and complexes.

He's lucky to be able to catch a bus into the centre of town, absolutely blessed. After all, the buses most Sundays are infrequent you have to plan hours in advance if you're relying on travelling on one. As if life is recompensating for allowing him a little fortune, he ends up squashed on the right of some aging lady who gets on at the stop after him, apparently holding no concept of personal space under that wide brimmed hat of hers.

Soon enough, he shuts his eyes in the confidence that he won't reach the stop near the shop he desires for at least another 20 minutes, the side of his head pressing against the condensation covered window. Despite the irksome vibrations and inability to completely relax due to the start-stop accelerate-decelerate nature of the journey, he still manages to find a comfortable position to remain in, and thankfully the lady gets off long before he'll need to.

After politely thanking the bus driver, he is able to enter the far more metropolitan part of town, shops and structures and crossings everywhere you could possibly look. Considering the time and day, only about a quarter of the shops are open and there really aren't many people around. His destination, his fucking coffee, is just on the other side of the road, hiding somewhere in the aisles of one of the many Lawsons dotted around the vicinity.

Subaru strolls and turns to pause at the black and white painted crossing, his eyes scanning both ways just to be safe.

 

 

He hears everything before he sees it.

 

 

He hears a feline yowl, followed by a desperate yell that escalates to a horrified scream, accompanied by the screech of tyres and the jarring noise of a horn. It's all a fucking cacophany, a brutal offense to the ears.

It's not like the movies, it doesn't play out in slow-motion like you're led to believe. Upon a split second twist of his head, he sees a blur of a blond head dash past him, to the rear of a small tortoiseshell cat that's bolting forward at exactly the wrong fucking moment. The guy dives down, he shoves the cat out of the way but he's not in time to save himself because the black Rover smashes into him at a rapid velocity, launching him in the air for a few moments before he comes to a landing face-first onto the concrete below with an audible crunch, then rolling onto his back from the sheer momentum.

Subaru was never the type to freeze in a crisis, the very second the car jolts to its belated halt, he runs as fast as he can to kneel by the body of the crash victim, his hands frantically searching and skimming over to the fragile part of his wrist to locate his pulse, if it was even there.

_Please, please don't let me have just watched a guy die._

His sigh of relief was audible as a strong beat sounded below his twinned fingers, flicking his eyes quickly to the sky as if he were thanking some unknown force. He's aware of the woman stood stiffly on the other side of the street pulling out her mobile to contact an ambulance, just vaguely acknowledging the man in the car with his head smashed into the cracked windscreen with blood staining the glass. Neither are his main focus.

And that's when Subaru makes the fatal mistake of looking at that face.

Barely recognisable: smeared all over with crimson and blossoming bruises and cuts, barely any of the flawless pale skin originally present even visible. Even though those iridescent baby-blues were lightly shut, that smirking mouth split on the bottom lip resting slightly parted and neutral, there was no mistaking the features laying beneath the wounds and afflictions of the crash.

Subaru had just watched Kou fucking Mukami get hit by a car.

(And he isn't even laughing.)

It could have been hours or seconds before the ambulance rolled up, Subaru sure as hell wasn't counting. All he found himself doing in that time was staring into that broken face in fascination and horror, his feelings a mystery to himself. It was indirect revenge years too late, though at this point Subaru could barely recall all of their interactions and fights, nor that one fucking time-

He's shoved aside by a justifiably rushed looking medic, assisted by another with a kind, plump female face who looks him in the eye, she can't be more than twenty. While lifting Kou's legs (the fact that it is Kou is again hard to process) onto the stretcher, she parts her lips to speak.

"Were you with him?" She asks.

Subaru isn't fully sure why he lies, but it's a heat of the moment thing.

"Yeah." He replies, unable to tear his eyes from Kou's limp form.

She hesitates for a moment, obviously mistaking the shock in Subaru's eyes for that of Kou's.. what? His friend? Her sympathy eventually wins over, nodding as she backs the stretcher into the open rear end of the ambulance. The other medic, a skinny older man with the aura of a real hard worker turns to him when Kou is securely laid atop some sort of table.

"He'll live, but whether there's any permanent damage we'll have to find out at the hospital. Do you have a car?" He says in a brusque tone.

"No." Responds Subaru, biting down on his lip and still training his gaze on Kou.

"..Then get in the back." The male medic seems vaguely irritated about having to do this, as if it was some kind of huge burden to carry one extra passenger.

Subaru indicates his thanks and goes to sit on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chest. Though he possessed very little medical knowledge, he reflected on what injuries Kou must have. From the angle he was hit, his hipbone must be shattered into a thousand pieces, it was the first part of him to be smacked into by that heavy, heavy car after all. On top of that, he had landed front-first onto the road as well. He'd be lucky to get away with just one or two cracked ribs from the severity of it.

Picturing the scene in his mind, he remembered a vital aspect of the scene. While the pair of medics conversed urgently between themselves, Subaru dashed out of the ambulance to pick up two things:

First, the yellow bag Kou had dropped in his haste to get across the road. Second, the tiny cat lapping up a puddle in the street.

The cat seemed bizarrely unaffected by the disaster that had just occurred, docile and calm enough to remain still as Subaru scooped it up over his left arm. He peered into its now curiously glittering green eyes, a slit pupil of glazed black running through the middle.

"Y'know, I should shake your paw for doing that."

The dry comment muttered to uncomprehending, fluffy ears brought him no consolation, he was still ridiculously shaken from what he had witnessed. When he seated himself inside the ambulance again as the woman began to switch the engine on to get driving, he tried to shove the cat inside the bag, but to no avail. The fuzzy bastard couldn't seem to keep itself off of Subaru's lap, nuzzling into his stomach as if it had just made a new best friend.

"Oi, fuck off... You're lucky I'm not allergic."

Huffing under his breath, he reluctantly began to stroke the top of its head, eliciting deep purrs and affectionate headbutts from the admittedly rather cute kitty. At least, it served as a pretty great distraction to stop him from thinking about what had happened, and more importantly why he hadn't just gone the fuck home after watching it all. It's not like he was attached to Kou, he hadn't seen him in 3 years. Perhaps it was just the intrigue of it all, wouldn't anybody find it hard to just leave after watching something like that happen to somebody you know? That's how he justified it in his head anyway.

**"Damn it, Mukami.. Just what have you done?"**


End file.
